Good-Bye Gardeners

I finally did it. I have wanted to do this for almost ten years and I finally did it. I fired the gardeners. There are so many reasons for this. Let me explain.

The gardeners arrive at seven-thirty in the morning. It might as well be in the middle of the night as far as I am concerned. I work evenings and rarely get to sleep before one-thirty. If Georgie is acting up, I might be awake until three.

I don't sleep well on the night before gardener day, because I need to get up before they come and open the garage door and lock up the dogs. All night long I keep waking up and wondering if its time yet. Once it is starting to get light, I'll go downstairs and give the dogs one last chance to relieve themselves. Then, the doggy door is locked.

Once the gardeners arrive, the dogs bark like the world is coming to an end. Due to all of the excitement, MacKenzie will have a bowel movement on the carpet. Georgie sometimes will as well. And of course, what dog can have a bowel movement without also peeing? The day after gardener day, the carpet gets shampooed. My carpet shampooer gets so much use that it usually has to be replaced every year.

Once the gardeners have left, I have to close the garage and open the doggy door. I also have to stand and watch as the garage door comes down to make sure it doesn't go back up. The gardeners like to leave one of my brooms under the path of the door which prevents its closing. If the door doesn't close, the dogs can escape. I learned that the hard way.

The rest of the day, I'm tired and miserable. It also makes me unhappy when I see what they have done. They are only supposed to take care of the lawn, but they won't keep their mitts off my other plants. They love to prune and they have no idea what they are doing. I live in a warm climate. My rose bushes don't need to be pruned almost to the ground. I want them big and bushy. I also get upset when they weed-whack my dormant plants as they emerge from the ground. The gardeners can't tell irises from weeds. They also till the soil after I have planted seeds. And I'm still mad that last week I was making some soup and needed Swiss chard. I went out into the yard to get some and it was gone. I don't know if they thought the Swiss chard were weeds or if they wanted some for dinner also.

I would have fired them sooner, but my parents have insisted that I have gardeners. Rather than argue with them, it was just easier to do what they wanted. Now, my parents are old, frail
and not entirely with it. My dad is living in a nursing home and thinks he is on a ship. I see no reason to tell him any different. Since his last hospitalization, he just hasn't been the same. I suspect he went too long without oxygen before they were able to intubate him. My mom has the same mild dementia.

It is depressing having both of my parents being cognitively impaired, but it does have certain advantages. I was finally able to fire the gardeners.

Special Event

There was plenty of warning concerning the "special event." For weeks, road signs had flashed warnings about road closures for the special event. As the date approached, I memorized what day and time I would need to stay home. No mention was made what the special event was about, but I figured it was either a parade, walk or marathon. I didn't especially care. I just didn't want to be caught in the road closures.

On the big day, I woke to dogs barking. The special event wasn't scheduled for another four hours, but workers were already at the bottom of the hill getting set up. It wasn't time for me to get up, so I was feeling cranky about my sleep being interrupted. Getting the dogs to be quiet was hopeless. Everything within sight of our house is the dog's territory and so the dogs get upset whenever anyone trespasses on their property. It is perfectly understandable.

An hour before the special event, the dogs were completely going nuts. People were parking all over the street and walking to the bottom of the hill. Neighbors were walking by with their dogs. I was sitting on the couch with a view of the bottom of the hill. I was trying to read the paper, but I couldn't concentrate with all of the racket. I mainly just stared out the window and wished that the special event would be over soon.

I knew that the special event was near my house when I heard the helicopter coming. A news crew must have been filming. Next a cop car drove by making little whoop, whoop noises. It was followed by a group of bicyclists. They were in a tight cluster and were visible for about ten seconds from my window. They were followed by support vehicles and an ambulance.

The crowd left and finally it was quiet again. It seemed like a lot of trouble for a ten second show.
It wasn't until later I learned that Lance Armstrong rode by. If I had known he was coming, I would have tried to get a picture. Maybe next time.

Busted

My mom told me that she got arrested. By some odd coincidence, I also got arrested the same week. Well, we weren't really arrested. That was just my mom's term for it. What we got were traffic infractions.

This was my mom's first ticket and my second. What my mom was accused of doing was driving on the wrong side of the road. She says that she was driving into the left turn lane. I'm not sure if mom misjudged where the turning lane was or if the cop was mistaken, but she decided not to fight it. Her fine, not counting the cost of traffic school was about two hundred and twenty dollars.

I got caught in a speed trap. I had just gotten off the freeway and was driving on a wide road coming down a hill. The cop clocked me at 63 mph in a 45 speed zone. I believe the speed limit was deliberately set too low to trap speeders. I could fight it in court, but I don't need the stress and aggravation.

What irks me the most is that the cop used a radar gun. That just seems unsportsman-like. I want the cop to take after me and try to pace me. Many have tried and all have failed. It is an exciting game. I can slow my car down very quickly without lighting up the brake lights. It confuses the cops and they leave. Isn't that why hand-brakes were invented?

My fine was three hundred and thirty dollars. That hurts. I'm also not going to go to traffic school, because I did that once twenty years ago and that was enough. I'm hoping that my insurance rates don't go up. I'll soon find out.